What is a Lead Magnet?

What is a lead magnet? Welcome to Legal Marketing 101, I'm Toby Rosen. You've heard about lead magnets from your marketing team, from me and from pretty much everyone everywhere at this point. So what exactly is a lead magnet? The term itself is actually pretty self-explanatory, but let's break it down a little bit. Have you seen those videos on YouTube about magnet fishing where these guys, usually in states like my home state of North Carolina, are fishing from bridges, using these large magnets to bring up sort of whatever they can find? Often their catch is pretty interesting for a few good old boys, but it's things like unexploded ordnance that's been tossed in rivers from a nearby military base, or car parts or just other metal stuff. It's kind of mindless. But hey, that's fishing right. And lead magnets they're kind of the same thing. Perhaps we marketers should have called them lead hooks, since I wouldn't have had to tell that little story about magnet fishing to explain that you can also fish with magnets. But I digress. Lead magnets are your bait and instead of old rifle rounds or fishing for great trout, we're fishing for new clients and that's why we call it a magnet, because it is bait.

We use lead magnets to attract people to our landing pages and websites and social profiles and to get them to engage with us. We want these potential clients to give us some kind of information and while we usually are offering our lead magnet free of charge, the transaction isn't entirely free. We do need to get something back from these visitors, and often a name and email is plenty of payment for our purposes. Now, not to get too far off topic, but because we are not going to come back to this in this episode, I will say this If we're taking quote unquote payment for our lead magnets in the form of data like names and emails, we need to be capitalizing on that or we're throwing away money, whether we're using something like an auto responder or monthly emails. Personal outreach there's so much you can do here and we've talked about a lot of this before and we will talk a lot about it again in another episode but you need to be doing something with that data, otherwise your investment in this lead magnet will go to waste. Okay, back on track.

So what actually is a lead magnet? We understand conceptually that a lead magnet should help us bring traffic in and collect information from potential clients. So what is it that we're actually offering them and the reality of that is, if it's valuable, any type of content will probably work. That's not to say that just any content will work, but any type of content can fit the mold of a great lead magnet. So I'll get to the juicy part in a second and talk about the types of lead magnets you can create to actually captivate your audience.

But remember that if your lead magnet is going to be successful, it must do these three things. Number one it must be irresistible. The content should be highly relevant and it should be simple but with high perceived value, and it should be high quality in the design and presentation. Number two it must address a specific problem. We really want to hit the nail on the head with what our clients are thinking, and being specific is the best way to do this. Focus on the pain points that clients have right before they call you, and you'll be on the right track. Number three it must provide near instant gratification. We want to delay the delivery of our lead magnet as little as possible and hopefully provide the person with an answer quickly so that we can get a foot in the door on nurturing this potential client.

Okay, with that in mind, let's get to the juicy part. What types of lead magnets can you actually create to captivate your audience and drive your practice forward? Now I'm only going to cover nine ideas here, and you might be thinking nine is already a lot Toei, but this is the type of content that marketers really thrive on, because it really allows for limitless creativity. These nine ideas are very much within a narrow spectrum of what is possible. They're for law firms, they're safe and you can do all of these online. But this is not the end of the list, because obviously there are a couple of things that are qualifying these ideas. So just keep that in mind. Don't let this list limit you when it comes to what you can do to bring in clients.

So number one is eBooks and guides. You can craft a comprehensive eBook or guide that dives into a common legal issue that your target clients are facing. So, for example, we could say the ultimate guide to estate planning for families, or an eBook like navigating personal injury claims colon, your step-by-step handbook. Number two is checklists and cheat sheets. These are very similar to number one, but they're even more fantastic for breaking down complex legal processes into simple, actionable steps for clients. So maybe for PI, we could do a personal injury claim checklist or, for businesses, a business compliance cheat sheet.

Number three is webinars and workshops. You can host informative webinars or online works. They're kind of one in the same and address topics that are specific to your clients. So, if it's divorce, you're addressing specific elements of the divorce process, like how to deal with custody orders or how to calculate child support. Make sure these webinars offer real value, and then they need to end with a call to action to learn more or engage with your firm. So, yes, we're offering content with these, but they're going to take more time than some of the other ideas, so make sure you're trying to make a sale at the end.

Number four is templates and forms. You can develop customizable templates or forms for things like contracts or wills or business agreements or, again in the divorce space, uncontested divorce, and you can offer these for free to your potential clients. It might seem like we're giving away our secrets for free, but what we're really doing here is highlighting the importance of seeking professional legal advice to make sure all of this stuff is properly executed. Number five is quizzes and assessments, and there's a bunch of different ways to frame this, but these interactive quizzes are really engaging for your audience, because it'll help them understand their legal needs better by breaking things down. So for business, you could do something like is your business legally protected? And then have the call to action. Take our quiz that walks somebody through what types of insurance and what types of registrations they have, depending on their industry, or all of those different types of factors. I'm not super in the business law world.

Number six is video series. Create a video series. We've talked about video content before, but you can use this to actually advertise. Hey, there's this content that you can go through and get really deep dive explanations on different things. Not only will it give satisfying content to your audience, but it also is showcasing your expertise. And on top of that I'm not going to go too deep into it but, like with all these different pieces of content, not only can these be used as lead magnets, but they can be shared on your website, social media and throughout your nurturing programs.

Number seven is email courses, and I will preface this by saying that this has not been the best CTA. Sign up for an email course is not something most people want to do, it seems, but they are really effective when combined with other lead magnets. So offering a free email course that drips out legal knowledge over several days or weeks or months is really great for keeping clients engaged and it builds a relationship, it builds trust and it keeps your law firm top of mind. A lot of the time you'll hear this refer to his drip sequences and generally I recommend using this with number one and ebook. But number eight is white papers and research reports. Something that not enough lawyers, I think, especially in the small firm arena, are doing is doing these types of research reports that are diving into these specific legal topics and providing insights that are backed by research. So these are really appealing to business clients. Perhaps that's why we don't see them with a lot of small firms, but for these business clients, if they want to see in-depth information on subjects, legal issues and how that's going to affect their business, highly, highly effective strategy.

Number nine is case studies, and I'm also going to sneak in reviews here a little bit, because it's something that's sort of one in the same, but with a case study we're going a little bit deeper. So instead of just talking about how great the client thinks you are, we're sharing this success story and it's a study of how the client got through their process, how you were able to help them and what the real world example is of your expertise. Perspective clients love to see this on top of the reviews and on top of the personality. If you can show them this is how this person went through this process, it really shows them how it's going to work for them as well. But, like I said, these nine ideas are pulled from a very narrow range. They're safe ideas. I've used every one of the ideas on the list and they all work. Some work better than others and, of course, there is a reason that I put eBooks at number one on the list.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't try everything you should. What has worked for me might not work for you, and what didn't work for me might take your firm from six figure to seven figure monthly revenue. Like with everything else, testing is king here. If you haven't listened to my AB testing episodes, make sure to go back and look for those Now.

Like I said, this is a somewhat short episode because there is a ton to unpack here and I'm sure your brain is already spinning with ideas on what you could do to attract more clients. But don't forget, the key to successful lead magnets lies in providing genuine value to your potential clients. By doing this, you're building trust through expertise and through interaction with the clients. That will lead to more clients coming through the door and picking up the phone. So make your lead magnet irresistible. Make sure it addresses a problem and hopefully it solves it, and make sure it gratifies your potential client almost instantly. We're going to have another episode on how to drive traffic to your lead magnet soon, but for today that's it for legal marketing 101. Check out rosanadvertisingcom for more Thanks.